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BART Withholding Surveillance Videos Of Crime To Avoid ‘Stereotypes’

SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX) — In the last three months, there have been at least three robberies on BART involving groups of teenagers.

“I think people are genuinely concerned — they are fearful about the stories that have come out about the recent attacks, the assaults, the thefts,” said Debora Allen, who is a member of the BART Board of Directors.

Allen told us the agency issued an explanation for why it is being tight-lipped about the thefts.

“To release these videos would create a high level of racially insensitive commentary toward the district,” she was told. “And in addition it would create a racial bias in the riders against minorities on the trains.”

According to a memo distributed to BART Directors, the agency won’t do a press release on the June 30 theft because it was a “petty crime” that would make BART look “crime ridden.” Furthermore, it would “unfairly affect and characterize riders of color, leading to sweeping generalizations in media reports.”

Allen emailed Hamill, “I don’t understand what role the color of one’s skin plays in this issue [of whether to divulge information]. Can you explain?”

Hamill responded, “If we were to regularly feed the news media video of crimes on our system that involve minority suspects, particularly when they are minors, we would certainly face questions as to why we were sensationalizing relatively minor crimes and perpetuating false stereotypes in the process.” And added her opinion of the media: “My view is that the media’s real interest in the videos of youth phone snatching incidents isn’t the desire for transparency but rather the pursuit of ratings. They know that video of these events will drive clicks to their websites and viewers to their programs because people are motivated by fear.”

Allen says scared passengers aren’t being unreasonable — being on a BART train is a vulnerable position.

“This is BART, people are sort of trapped in this train for awhile and they have a right to see what could potentially happen.”

She says all this raises questions, “What is the priority of BART? Is the safety of the passenger — of all passengers — is that a lesser priority than the race bias issue?”

According to BART spokesman Taylor Huckaby, state law protecting “juvenile police records” prevents them from showing the surveillance video, even though at least one of the people arrested for the April 22 attack is 19 years old. (He cited Cal. Gov’t Code 827.9) And, even if the faces of juveniles were blurred, Huckaby says watching the videos would be pointless gawking.

• • • •

BART MEMO (FULL TEXT)

TO: Board of Directors DATE: July 7, 2017

FROM: Kerry Hamill

AGM Office of External Affairs

SUBJECT: Providing public access to crime data via CrimeMapping.com

The BART Police Department is now sharing reports of crimes with the website CrimeMapping.com. The site processes crime data with its advanced mapping engine to show where a crime has occurred within the BART system. The decision to provide crime data to CrimeMapping.com was made by BART Police Chief Carlos Rojas as part of an effort to increase public transparency as well as to bolster community oriented policing efforts. This decision was shared with Board members and with the media in early June, 2017.

Crime data from BART is being fed to CrimeMapping.com from our Records Management System. This new technology has increased the efficiency, accuracy and transparency of our crime reporting. BART is following the lead of several large police departments in the Bay Area that already provide their crime data to CrimeMapping.com. That list includes police departments in San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, Hayward, Richmond, and Berkeley. The website is used by law enforcement agencies across the country to provide localized and updated crime data to constituents to raise awareness and encourage prevention.

Previously, crime logs (in narrative form) had been manually entered and emailed to a small group of approximately 300 readers and local media. The data now is available to all members of the public, freely, on the internet. Recent reports have criticized this move as a step away from transparency. All of our crimes are still being reported, simply not in the way reporters previously received them. Many reporters remain unfamiliar with the interface.Furthermore, it is important to note that much of the criticism leveled at BART from local media on this topic was generated for the benefit of media themselves. Reporters (based on the recent phone snatching at Coliseum) repeatedly questioned why the District did not issue a press release (or would not be issuing a press release in the future) on the topic of petty crimes.

The Media Department has criteria for whether to issue a press release, and this incident did not meet them. The robbery was thwarted by the victim’s fellow riders, then the assailants were all detained and identified thanks to a bolstered police presence at Coliseum station. No property was taken, and no injuries required medical attention.

There is no benefit to riders, criminal procedure, BART police investigations, or the District generally to elevate such an incident with a press release. To do so would be grossly out of step with other transit jurisdictions and municipal governments, and would paint an inaccurate picture of the BART system as crime-ridden when incidents of crime on transit, including BART, are fewer than in the surrounding communities. The new mapping tool presents crime in a context of what is occurring outside our stations—in the days following the recent attempted robbery, there were over 118 assaults and 33 robberies in the immediate area. All of these incidents were ignored by local media.

Furthermore, disproportionate elevation of crimes on transit interfaces with local media in such a way to unfairly affect and characterize riders of color, leading to sweeping generalizations in media reports and a high level of racially insensitive commentary directed toward the District through our social media channels, email, and call centers. The BART Police Department has a hard copy of all the data provided to CrimeMapping.com. It is available to the public at its Lake Merritt Station headquarters. Many police agencies, according to the Police Chief, provide written versions of their police logs for public review at their offices as standard practice.

Users can access the information by going to the CrimeMapping.com website and entering a station name in the search box. The information about specific crimes at that station will be displayed on a map along with crimes that have occurred in the surrounding neighborhood if that local jurisdiction participates in the CrimeMapping system. Users can look up the time and type of crime that occurred, and organize the map by agency, e.g., if you only want to see crimes that occurred on BART, you can turn off icons for crimes that occurred under other departments’ jurisdictions. CrimeMapping.com stores the data for up to 180 days.

The site can also display crime data in charts and graphs, illustrating whether there has been a recent spike or decline in criminal activity. TriTech Software Systems, the parent company behind crimemapping.com, is one of the largest vendors for tier one public safety software systems in the nation. As part of our Regional Anti-Terrorism Law Enforcement Systems (RAILS) project, we have implanted the entire TriTech Software Systems Inform suite, which includes: computer-aided dispatch, in-car mobile software, web-based records management system, IQ analytics, and crime analytics software (known as CrimeView). This has allowed us to capture and analyze data to help determine how to best deploy our resources in the field.

BART data has been live on the CrimeMapping.com site since early June. The Office of External Affairs continues to respond well within 24 hours to media inquiries requesting detail or commentary on any crime reported on the website, and continues to work with the BART Police Department to develop best practices for reporting on crime.

If you have any further questions, please contact me at ******* or Chief Carlos Rojas at *******.

Kerry Hamill

Assistant General Manager

Office of External Affairs

• • • •

From: Debora Allen

Sent: Friday, July 07, 2017 1:29 PM

To: Kerry Hamill

Subject: Re: Crime data transparency through the CrimeMapping system

Hi Kerry, this is helpful information. Thank you!

Question for you: Can you explain what this part of your memo means: “Furthermore, disproportionate elevation of crimes on transit interfaces with local media in such a way to unfairly affect and characterize riders of color,..”

I don’t understand what role the color of ones skin plays in this issue . Can you explain?.

Debora Allen

BART Director District 1

Debora.Allen@BART.gov

• • • •

From: Kerry Hamill

Sent: Friday, July 7, 2017 4:06:30 PM

To: Debora Allen

Subject: RE: Crime data transparency through the CrimeMapping system

Director Allen. Thank you for the question.

The social media reaction to the original Coliseum incident in April was startling in the level of racial profiling that it prompted. The General Manager got a call about the incident on her voicemail that used racist and incendiary language that made my mouth drop. Many posts used patently offensive language that often involved racial slurs (no news articles ever referenced the race of the offenders yet some members of the public leapt to their own conclusions). Some telephone calls and posts even involved vague threats. The media has proven its tendency to highlight material in the most inflammatory way possible. As a former journalist, I can cite for you a number of bias studies that have pointed out media bias and the damaging consequences of it.

The firestorm of criticism in the wake of the Oscar Grant killing centered around a belief that BART police were racially biased. If we were to regularly feed the news media video of crimes on our system that involve minority suspects, particularly when they are minors, we would certainly face questions as to why we were sensationalizing relatively minor crimes and perpetuating false stereotypes in the process.

I have worked in or with media since the 1980’s. My view is that the media’s real interest in the videos of youth phone snatching incidents isn’t the desire for transparency but rather the pursuit of ratings. They know that video of these events will drive clicks to their websites and viewers to their programs because people are motivated by fear. People can be fully informed about crimes that occur on our system without being shown images that will inflame some members of the public and paint the transit agency in a poor and ultimately misleading light.

I think the key question is: What is BART doing to prevent these kinds of coordinated robberies from happening again? Until you address this central issue, the riders will see BART management as powerless, ineffective and without ideas to eliminate fear of harassment and worse while riding BART.

By the way, why is it that everyone is constantly being hit up for cash by panhandlers and performers. Why can’t we enjoy or ride without being interrupted? Does BART management assume that it’s the riders responsibility to listen and pay these people even if they might be struggling to make ends meet themselves? Oh yeah I forgot. BART employees and managers are paid ~$70,000-$250,000 a year and don’t have to take BART to get to work. Just saying….

Try being asian. We get lumped with these feral animals everytime the media uses the sweepingly vague term “minorities” to coverup rampant black criminality. LEAVE ME OUT IF IT NOT ALL MINORITIES ARE CREATED EQUAL.

Most of us can’t try to be Asian but I’ve worked for a Japanese countertop company for approx. 12 years and they were easy to get along with, paid well but they stuck together as many families do and never invited me to their get togethers. Jimmy the boss would take me out to lunch after we finished a job. He had a fit when I attempted to pay for the meal one day.

Most Asians are decent, hard working, law abiding citizens and I do feel for you being bunched together with the gh e tto neg roes. I have to separate the letters, otherwise the PC filter on this site will blackhole my message.

Oh, rest assured. By refusing to release the videos you are making a MUCH stronger statement about exactly what kind of “teens” “youths” “kids” and “students” are creating this havoc and victimizing innocents. HINT: they aren’t Amish.

Truths Cuts Both ways and should not be covered up or hidden.
When we bury our heads in the sand and hide from the Truth we are defeated.
This is the exact reason our democracy is in dire straights today.
The evil doers need to be exposed no matter what race,religion or party they belong to.
Doing otherwise is a huge disservice to all Americans and our Country.

This is one of the Reason Trump won the Presidency.
Liberal Government officials will attack Conservatives for crimes but will actively try to bury,hid or cover-up the Truth when Minorities commit violent crimes.
The Truth needs to stand Tall for all to see no matter who you are if it is to be believed and respected.

suprise suprise, of course all the perps are black teenagers, wake up America, the media wants to hide the reality of black criminality from you, they’ll call them “youths” and “teenagers” to hide the fact that this is racial violence.

This is nothing new and I’m surprised an article was even written on the subject. When normal people on the street read articles regarding a “teen” or “youth” violence or crime but with no pictures, everyone ALREADY KNOWS the perpetrators are black….EVERYONE. It’s all part of the FAKE NEWS agenda to hide black crime. Real people may not admit it out of fear of losing their job, the promotion, the house, the car, the wife, the kids from living in a politically correct police state but they silently understand the danger of black crime- that’s why even white liberals will avoid living in a black neighborhood like the plague despite being 400% cheaper and closer to work. No one REALLY believes in the big lie, “diversity is our strength”.

They are setting themselves up for a huge negligence lawsuit. The second a black robbed or assaulted me from any agency government or private that had been hiding identities and of crime in that area or service, I would be a wealthy man. To avoid liability, they need to disclose crime statistics. People have a right to avoid areas and services to stay safe. If they are intentionally hiding things, they negligently place individuals in danger. Oh well, the way they figure it, when a someone sues for being injured from them hiding astronomical levels of black crime, it doesn’t matter since white taxpayers will be paying for the lawsuit anyhow. We see this attitude all over the West in settling the epidemic of race bullying lawsuits that wouldn’t have a prayer of winning in court but that the government entity will just pay to avoid their city being burned to the ground or even being called racist… Gotta love when being honest and seeking justice is racist these days…

Hilarious! Got to hide the videos because we don’t want anyone to think that the people committing the crimes are the people committing the crimes! A level of absurdity only achievable through the antics of the Left…

Psychotics on the left…in the media, in positions of public authority…are having a severely damaging impact on our society. And remember, many psychotics can appear “normal” and “reasonable” but they do nonetheless have psychotic tendencies that are revealed in different ways. In these instances, they are revealing their psychotic tendencies through complete, radical denial of facts and reality. Talk about PSYCHOTIC.

Just the Facts Mam …. Just the Facts ….. Teanagers= Black Criminals… African Americans aka Negros … aka Afro Americans …. aka Black Gang members…. Black Mob violence against the most vulnerable …. Black on Gay, Black on old people, Black on mentally handicapped, Black on Asian, Black on turtles, Black on Dogs Cats, horses….. Black crimes against children… Black crime against cops, a Black crime against Firefighters, Ambulance drivers and Taxi drivers..
You name it and there are Black criminals causing this tidal wave of crime… And to top it all off
where the heck are all the feminist when it comes to the whopper of all crimes against humanity
violent rape which according to the police reports is about 19,000 to 3 every year, year in year out… and that is just the Black on white numbers…

“According to BART spokesman Taylor Huckaby, state law protecting “juvenile police records” prevents them from showing the surveillance video…”

FALSE….a surveillance video is just that, owned by them not the police department. If the Motel 6 wants to show their surveillance video of teenagers committing crimes on the 5 o’clock news, they are free to do so, and there is NO state law preventing them from doing so.

“”If we were to regularly feed the news media video of crimes on our system that involve minority suspects, particularly when they are minors, we would certainly face questions as to why we were sensationalizing relatively minor crimes and perpetuating false stereotypes in the process,” Hamill replied.”

In two of these three black teen “flash rob” incidents, passengers were BEATEN – and that is a “relatively minor crime”?

Bart should be anxious to share the videos to disprove the false stereotypes that it is black people who do these types of crimes. Let us see all the Hasidic Jews and Catholic Nuns that are perpetrating these crimes. I’m tired of these false stereotypes.

They are not minor crimes. They are 1) strong arm robbery; 2) theft of $1000 dollar devices; 3) theft of identity theft information contained on those devices; 4) during the commission of the crimes victims are not allowed to leave – kidnapping. These are repeat offenses now, the latest taking place with a group of perps who followed the victim to the UC Berkeley campus where the crimes were committed. There is a pattern here and it is irresponsible of BART to release information that can enable their riders/customers to be better aware and prepared for potential threats

From the comments made on the CBS video, you can conclude that the violence on BART is being caused by minorities.

I did my own survey to find what could stop terror caused by minority violence against white people on BART.
Here are the top six responses:

1) don’t let white people on BART
2) don’t let minorities on BART
3) let white people carry guns on BART
4) let white people have their own car on BART
5) let minorities have their own car on BART
6) make minorities sit at the back of the car on BART

I contacted BART to see how their survey results compared with mine.

BART refused to comply with my request – stating: “… it would create a racial bias in the riders against minorities on the trains …”

They are mere babes. Just children out having a little harmless fun. Why, they were all really on their way to choir practice and took offense to the passengers who complained about the hymns they were rapping. The saintly youths even stated that one or two of the GROWN MEN passengers threatened about 30 of the noble God-Fearing, Church-Going, Mother-Worshipping paragons of virtue. Once again, the reports of violence perpetrated by minorities is a full scale lie by privileged folks who live in nice houses and have good paying jobs. Nothing happened. The News reports are all bogus. The reports of violence by anyone who was riding the BART are all lies. Gentle people are always blamed for the actions of Right Wing Bigots.
None so blind as they who can not see reality.

So I fully understand how the media works:
1) If a crime is committed, the criminal is to remain the victim
2) Any mention of ethnicity is racially offensive or profiling
3) Gangs can operate with impunity as long as they are a minority
4) Violent crime is not a violent crime if committed by a minority
5) We should accept criminal activity as an accepted way of life for minorities
6) If you get your butt kicked on any public transit, it is your fault for not giving everything you own
to any one who threatens you
7) No matter what you do as a law abiding citizen, you do not have the rights of a criminal

You really think that by keeping the issues in the shadows that it will make them go away or change the perception of people?!? Consider these next words a gift and ponder what they mean….
” Brand kindles from brand until it be burned, spark is kindled from spark, man unfolds him by speech with man, but grows over secret through silence.”

It is clearly racist to show a black person committing a crime. It is also racist to call a black person who kills someone a murderer. They should be referred to as misunderstood angel. It is definitely racist to call a spade a spade but only if that spade is black.

The masterminds work to make it too expensive to use a car and then force people onto their mass transit that they cannot run safely. Notice none of the masterminds have to ride BART, and if they did they would have armed protection.
When will the middle class and poor realize that the elected elites of both parties do not care about them and when they give their health care over to them the future will be this.
The poor California citizen is forced out of his/her car onto mass transit, assaulted by a person that should have been deported five times but was kept in the country by the sanctuary laws, taken to a public hospital with massive injuries and denied care because the masterminds decided it was not worth saving him/her

When people are deprived of information as to how dangerous something is, they are placed at risk. Withholding this information for whatever reason is a lie of omission and is completely indefensible.

How many other agencies Nationwide are doing the same thing? How many innocent people have been needlessly victimized by crime because they weren’t PERMITTED to be aware of the risks?

Thank Goodness for cell cams and independent media….at least there is a means of bypassing these politically-driven lies and learning the truth, even if by a roundabout means.

This is just another example of FAKE NEWS….by intentionally withholding information to suit your own agenda you are perpetrating a lie….a lie that in this case could get someone killed….and perhaps it has already.

The bottom line is that BART executives would rather be politically correct than show the truth about the safety of their passengers. This should be a source of serious concern for anyone planning to ride BART who has any other means of transportation. I pity those who don’t.

I know how to solve this: Close West Oakland, Lake Merritt, Fruitvale, and San Leandro stations. Make Coliseum a ‘closed unit’–either you go to the Coliseum or Airport. No exchange with the public. If crime drops, reopen the stations after the installation of metal detectors and post guards the platforms one car apart at all operational hours.

It is bad enough that pertinent facts of the video reflecting the actual crime is not being presented publicly but it is far worse that the video is not used to identify, arrest and prosecute the social deviants. . . . OTHERWISE, why hasn’t anyone been identified, arrested and prosecuted ?

Can any of you imagine the speed at which they (BART) would breathlessly shop the video to every news outlet and tearfully testify about the “barbaric horror” if some White guy pulled out a gun when facing a crowd of these rampaging “youts” and blasted a bunch of them into bloody puddles?

THAT story might even keep the national MSM from reporting some new Trump outrage … for at least a couple hours.

We need to reign in the progressive judicio-legal industrial complex on the issue of the release of mug shots and surveillance video to the general public — juveniles or not.

Where no arrests have yet been made, such release is a long-standing tool for locating criminals; when arrests have been made and the accused are free on bail, my fellow law-abiding citizens and I have a legitimate interest in knowing the identities of the accused just so that we may avoid them in public.

The question of the presence or absence of racial information in a press release about a crime is a tempest in a teapot. Reporting only the race, height, weight, and age of a suspect 99 times out of 100 serves no public safety purpose. As many here have cogently pointed out, it seems that this information is reported more often when a suspect is white: if that is true, all it means that the media are trying to engineering the truth. This is so transparent that they make themselves look ridiculous.

The judicio-legal industrial complex does not want us to see these videos, despite our legitimate interest in seeing them. This is why we have direct democracy. We’ll need a ballot proposition making surveillance video of criminal acts releasable to the public. If that hinders ongoing law enforcement “investigations”, that’s too bad. The public’s right to know the is more important. If such a common-sense measure were to pass, you can be sure that the California judicio-legal complex would oppose it, and it would take an organization with funding to fight the inevitable challenges.